1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to delivering relevant media content for web pages, and in particular, to a method, system, apparatus, and article of manufacture for rapidly providing such relevant media content.
2. Description of the Related Art
Media content such as audio-video is often delivered to end-users via web sites. Based on the context in which the media content is presented on the web site, it is often desirable to present customized or relevant media content. To provide customized/relevant media content, prior art implementations require manual configuration by the web site owner as well as the manual determination of relevant content to put into the web site. Such practices are time consuming, impractical, fail to account for changes in the hosting web site, and are prone to error. These problems may be better understood with a description of prior art media content delivery mechanisms.
Media content can be delivered to Internet users through a variety of mechanisms. In one example, a media content web site (e.g., Hulu.com™) may directly stream content to users. In another example, internet portal web sites (e.g., Yahoo™, news web sites, Google™, etc.) may (1) link to, or (2) embed media content (e.g., videos) in their web pages.
Links (e.g., a uniform resource locator—URL) may be displayed on the webpage, and upon selecting a particular link, either: (1) the user may be transported to the URL location where a new webpage is displayed containing the content, or (2) the media content may be displayed to the user within the web page.
With media content that is embedded into the webpage, the location (i.e., URL or local file location) of the media content may be specified within an appropriate command or tag (e.g., hyptertext markup language [HTML], or extensible markup language [XML], Java™, etc.). For example, the <OBJECT> tag and/or the <EMBED> tag may be used to embed content into a webpage. When embedding content using such code/tags, the code must specify an object type (e.g., a plug-in for a media content player) necessary to display/play the content within the web page as well as the location of the media content to be played using the plug-in. Further, the size of the object type may also be specified. Thus, whenever media content is embedded, both the media player/object and the specific location of the media content that is embedded must be specified.
Internet portal web sites often utilize or embed media content from third party media content hosts/owners (e.g., Hulu™). Such content may be emailed by the third party media content host/owner to the internet portal web site. Alternatively, the internet portal web site may simply specify the location of the media content that may be hosted by the third party. Thus, once embedded or linked to, when a user clicks on a thumbnail or link, the media content may be retrieved from the appropriate location and played within the embedded media player on the same web site/page. Alternatively, a new window, in which the media content is displayed, may open for the user.
It is often desirable for the embedded media content to be relevant to, or related to, the information presented in the web page. For example, if the web page contains a news article about an actress that has recently passed away, it may be desirable to link to or embed a clip from a movie starring the actress. In another example, if the web site describes how to cook a certain recipe, it may be desirable to link to or embed a media clip demonstrating a chef following the recipe or a clip about the recipe's author. To provide such content, the prior art requires the manual entry by a programmer of the media content location in the web page. Further, determining which content to place in the web page is a manual operation.
In addition to the above, internet portal web sites (e.g., news web sites or other websites that users access for information, content, data, etc.) may often change their content. For example, recent news items may be displayed and changed on an hourly, daily, and/or weekly basis (e.g., the home page of a news website). With the frequent changes of the web site/page, it is desirable to update and modify the linked/embedded media content on the web site/page. However, as described above, the particular media content (i.e., the location and method of playing the content) that is embedded has to be manually programmed by the web site host/designer. Thus, if a news article describes a grand opening of a large department store with celebrities in attendance, the third party may have to manually embed a link to videos about the department store location, the particular celebrity, etc. Such manual operations are inefficient, and often not possible due to the frequency of changes.
Further to the above, it is desirable to analyze the content of a web site/page in order to find relevant media content that should be embed into the web site/page. For example, if a car or face is found in an image displayed on a web site/page, it may be desirable to embed information or a clip about the car or face. Further, if an event is identified in a media clip (e.g., a person running or sitting), information about the event is desirable. In this regard, internet portal web sites may request a content provider to analyze and provide relevant media content for embedding into the web page. Many prior art content analysis systems exist in the prior art. However, the ability to utilize the information obtained from a content analysis system to provide/deliver relevant additional media content is unavailable in the prior art. Further, the ability to perform such operations dynamically, in real-time is also unavailable in the prior art.
In view of the above, it is desirable to dynamically perform content analysis and to utilize the results of such content analysis to dynamically embed/link media content on a web site/page.